


The Death of Laszlo

by TransTroubadour



Series: Laszlo the Tailor [6]
Category: Death to the Mechanisms - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Chronic Pain, Hurt No Comfort, Multi, Other, Terminal Illnesses, dttm, the other two are there but not worth tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29490237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransTroubadour/pseuds/TransTroubadour
Summary: Death was always a fickle thing.  Too many times in their mortal lifespan they had almost died, and too many times they had met Death when they became immortal.  Death had a name, besides his title.  Laszlo found they had fallen for Death, and that he was an unfortunate man.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian/Jonny d'Ville/Gunpowder Tim, Drumbot Brian/Original Character, Jonny d'Ville/Original Character
Series: Laszlo the Tailor [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086965
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	The Death of Laszlo

**Author's Note:**

> !!!! this is extremely sad and gruesome !!!! i (the writer) have a chronic illness and this is very *very* similar to how i feel some days. they die because of it and it really reminded me of my own mortality. there is blood and gore and abandonment.

Death was always a fickle thing. Too many times in their mortal lifespan they had almost died, and too many times they had met Death when they became immortal. Death had a name, besides his title. Laszlo found they had fallen for Death, and that he was an unfortunate man. His name was Jonny d’Ville, and despite the millenia he had to perfect everything he did, there were bound to be mistakes. You see, millenia gave a lot of time for error.

None had noticed the fatal mistake, not even Laszlo themself. There was only a twinge of pain during repairs, and then it was gone. Everything looked and felt perfectly fine, each gear oiled and slotted into place, every wire strung to the right tensity, so nothing was wrong.

It would take years to catch up with them. Laszlo would wake up just a little more tired than they should, with just a slight ache radiating from inside their body. Perhaps they were a bit sore from the day before, they had been climbing a building in the town they were inhabiting for a while.

But it stayed like that. Every step grew microscopically more painful, and though they didn’t show it, (as they had perfected the art of looking fine over their mortal years), they felt the dull pain.

Centuries passed and the feeling bloomed. Their back felt heavy as their body deteriorated under the metal and wire, the spine pressing and grinding against the inflamed muscles. It was agonizing. Every movement required a breath, slightly deeper than what would be considered necessary, but to the outside gaze, the rise and fall of their chest seemed steady, normal. Jonny, Brian, Tim, and Bertie never commented on how they started to wear shirts to bed.

One night, they decided to check out what was happening to them. They slotted their hand in Brian’s, and guided him away from the control panel he was piloting, “I need help with something.”

They sat on his work table and pulled off their shirt. Immediately Brian saw the skin around their spine was rubbed red with irritation. He ran a gentle finger over it and they whimpered in pain, and flinched at the sensation.

He asked them to sit up straight and stretch as far as they could. They raised their arms above their head and instead of the satisfying pop that would normally come, a grinding sound harmonized with a fizzing crackle of electricity. They quietly yelped in pain and curled back into themself, wires protruding from their back.

He soothed them with painful, butterfly soft kisses as tears started to form. As tenderly as he could, he started to pry the wires from each other and looked inside. The muscles surrounding the metal undulated before spasming as the electricity crackled. Their hand shot to their face and covered their mouth as they muffled their cry, wetly hiccuping.

Despite the tears that started to trail down their cheeks, Brian continued to inspect the damage. The prodded a gear and it squealed against the ones beside it, and rust started to appear. The brass that covered their spine hadn’t been resealed and it had gotten wet somehow. A small crack in it showed the green of the processing center had bubbled with erosion and corruption.

Brian whispered to them and they nodded, and it would be temporarily replaced, but nothing could stop what had already happened. They looked each other in the eyes, and wept together, with the only thing breaking the silence was quiet whimpers. Hand in hand, foreheads pressed together, they wept.

~~~

Jonny, Tim, and Bertie couldn’t find them anywhere. The planet they landed on had a big city where they docked, with intertwined streets with no discernible pattern. They twisted in complex patterns, as though they were limbs tangled together in a bed of lovers.

The three of them would not find them ever again. Laszlo was laying on the roof of the tallest building, watching the night sky rise above them. They were finally succumbing to the pain, and could feel every time a gear shifted in time with their every breath. They could feel as their spine warped their muscles and tendons, and slowly rose higher and higher. Their breaths became spluttered and uneven as blood started to pool when a snapped wire punctured the top of their back. Their body tore and split from each other, grinding away from their own life force.

Silent tears roll down their cheeks with a definitive certainty that only comes with being a true mortal. They hoped this day would never never come yet here they lay, and still they knew they would stay. With a broken heart they whispered, “I love you,” to the endless sky above them, treacherous in its vastness.

~~~

As Tim crashed his ship, rubble flew around him. Glass shattered through the windshield as his only layer of protection was brought to ruin. It snagged, it caught on his waistcoat, and the seam tore open. The strands of broken thread caught on his fallen goggles, and he was blinded, one final time.

Bertie’s chest felt heavy, and he found it hard to breathe. The weight of the metal that once balanced so perfectly in his ribs hurt and warped his organs. His final breath was crushed under the weight of what kept him alive for so long. 

Brian floated out there. It was cold and dark, no light or warmth for light years. He tried moving in the vastness, but as he felt time settle into his mechanical body, his joints creaked into the void. He, once again, could feel the pain of it.

It was here where Jonny died. Head split from the counter, bleeding from his chest, crimson spilling onto the cold floor. He put a hand to his chest, and felt the hole through his heart, cream silk shirt now ragged and pierced, staining black so quickly. He laughed, cackled even, and collapsed.

Each moment, they thought to themself. Unanimously, though throughout their different times and places, they all knew.  _ Laszlo, Doll, Love, Dear, Vena Amoris,  _ Laszlo the Tailor, had died.


End file.
